Milbank: N.Y. Democrat’s defeat just what the Democrats needed

Yet until Tuesday night, the party was in the absurd position of having septuagenarians occupying all three of its top leadership positions in the House — with a somewhat-less-old white guy, the 56-year-old Crowley, waiting patiently to succeed them.

This created the even more ridiculous likelihood that those leading the Democrats’ opposition to President Trump, a white guy from Queens, would soon be Sen. Charles E. Schumer, a white guy from Brooklyn, and Crowley, another white guy from Queens.

Make the Outer Boroughs Great Again!

Ocasio-Cortez saved Democrats from that and improved the odds of a younger and feistier Democratic opposition emerging. With Justice Anthony M. Kennedy’s departure from the Supreme Court, and with Trump poised to nominate the potentially deciding vote against abortion, gay rights, voting rights and gun control, the new blood is urgently needed.

My colleagues in the media are shoehorning Crowley’s defeat into the narrative that Bernie Sanders-like insurgents are toppling a Democratic establishment. It isn’t so, because the argument that there is a Democratic establishment resisting the progressive tide is a straw man.

Crowley lost because of the changing demographics in his district, which had been redrawn considerably after 2010 and is now only 18 percent white. Yes, Ocasio-Cortez calls herself a socialist, but Crowley was a down-the-line liberal, particularly in recent years, and a champion of single-payer health care. The issues Ocasio-Cortez used against him were largely nonideological: moving his family to Washington and taking special-interest money.

Thwarting Trumpism

Analyses indicate that first-time Democratic candidates this year tend to be more liberal than incumbents, but the entire party has moved to the left. There is no “civil war” within the party because no one is pushing back against the progressives’ rise.

The top three House Democratic leaders, California’s Pelosi, 78, Maryland’s Steny Hoyer, 79, and South Carolina’s James Clyburn, 77, show no interest in stepping down. But after November’s elections, they should set a timetable — a short one. Whoever wins the race to replace Crowley in the No. 4 spot will immediately become the party’s leader-in-waiting.

Among the contenders: Joe Kennedy (Mass.), 37, Bobby’s grandson and a former prosecutor, has charisma and a gift for oratory; Ben Ray Lujan (N.M.), 46, is a well-liked Latino and, as head of the DCCC, will be riding a wave of support if Democrats win the House; Cheri Bustos (Ill.), 56, would be a popular choice though she comes from a vulnerable district; and Adam Schiff (Calif.), 58, though another white guy, has media savvy and has deftly led House Democrats in the Russia inquiry and in intelligence matters.

The ouster of Crowley, who, fairly or not, had the aura of an old-time party boss and a conventional pol, gives the Democrats a vital chance to own the emerging electorate of young, female, nonwhite and progressive voters. This coalition can beat Trump in 2020 — and thwart Trumpism for years to come.